Mark Me
by fbeauchamphartz
Summary: In a society where the initials of the person you fall in love with show up on your wrist - Sebastian finds Kurt tending bar in Brooklyn, nearly unrecognizable. Apparently nursing a broken heart, Sebastian makes it his mission to try and get Kurt into bed, but he refuses to give in. After six months of Fridays and a devastating text message, can Sebastian finally change his mind?


**A/N:** _Written for the Kurtbastian Hiatus Project prompt 'au of choice'. I chose 'marking'. Based on a post I read that I can't seem to find (which asked the question what if when you fall in love a red tally mark shows up on your wrist…) In this au, similar rules apply, except the initials of the person you fall in love with show up in red on your wrist._

_FutureFic, skank!Kurt. Warning for alcohol, language, mention of sex, mention of Klaine/Blaine. Not Blaine friendly._

The life of a bartender is not that exciting…well, not at the bar where Kurt works, anyway. There's a lot of loud music, accompanied by awful dancing, and some truly tragic singing on Karaoke night, but no surly customers, no crazy bar fights, no bottles smashed over heads, or men throwing other men out of windows. It's not like in the movies, and not the way Kurt, back in his more naïve days, thought it would be. Kurt has seen his fair share of fake ID's. He's broken up a couple of lame arguments over whether beer on tap is better than beer from bottles. He's had to scold customers over not heeding the new 'No Smoking' law that's pissing everybody off. But otherwise, the customers he serves basically drink until they pass out, and then Kurt has to call AAA to drive them home.

It's not the life Kurt wanted, but the job pays pretty well when you factor in tips, especially if your clothes are tight and you know how to bullshit, which has become a second language to Kurt. Plus, his job allows for a certain level of anonymity. Canal Bar is off the beaten path, so to speak, far away from his loft and school, removed from anything he considers _reality_. In the time he's worked there, only one time did someone from school come in. Aaron, who used to sit behind Kurt in Intro to Theater, and never seemed to remember to bring a pen, looked Kurt straight in the eye, ordered an Arrogant Bastard Ale, and took a seat at the bar with his friends, without so much as a double take.

Ironic, considering Aaron once said that Kurt had the most remarkable eyes he'd ever seen. Unique and utterly unforgettable.

Right.

Kurt works mainly on weekends, and there are rarely any surprises. He can usually tell the troublemakers right off the bat, and adjusts his attitude (and his proximity to the Taser his boss stows under the bar) accordingly. Most drink orders during the course of the evening stay relatively the same – rum and coke, a shot or seventy of tequila, a black Russian, a white Russian, the obligatory Sex on the Beach for the sorority girls, with about twelve dozen beers, mostly domestic, thrown in here and there.

It's when he gets one order in particular that Kurt knows his peaceful evening is over.

"My God, Smythe," Kurt groans, pouring Sebastian a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale and Courvoisier chaser – his regular fare, "don't I get _one_ night off from you?"

"Never," Sebastian says, taking his drink before Kurt can pour it in his lap (which he's actually done a couple of times, holding the glass upside down over the crotch of Sebastian's designer jeans until the last drop drains, and then saying, with the straightest of faces, "Oops. My bad."). "I never get tired of your company."

"Really," Kurt says with an unimpressed eye roll. The banter gets put on pause while Kurt serves a Budweiser to a guy drumming his fingers on the bar, as if his show of impatience is going to make the alcohol pour from the spigot faster.

Sebastian takes a sip of his beer and waits for Kurt to return. "Of course," he says when Kurt makes his way back over. "The stimulating conversation coupled with the cozy atmosphere. It's très chic." Kurt starts cleaning tumblers in the small sink behind the bar while Sebastian continues on, doing his best not to attach too much importance to his words. He might be Sebastian Smythe, but here, he's just another customer. "I love this look you've got going for you tonight, by the way: the leather vest sans shirt, the spiked bracelets, the lime green hair…" Sebastian boosts himself up on the metal rungs of his stool to peek over the bar for a better look at Kurt's ensemble. "The stereotypical tight black jeans with the strategic rips and tears." Sebastian sits back down and grins. "Yup. You get trashier every time I see you."

"Fuck you, Sebastian," Kurt says. Those words have become his default response to every comment Sebastian makes, so they carry very little weight anymore.

"That's what I've been trying to get you to do for months now, Hummel," Sebastian says with a laugh. "You're just not smart enough to say _yes_."

"Yeah, well, you don't have that kind of luck," Kurt replies with a sneer, moving down the bar to serve more drinks.

Sebastian drinks his beer while he waits a second time for Kurt to come back around his way.

For all of his blustering, for all of his insults and _fuck yous_, Kurt always comes back. It didn't used to be that way. The first few nights after Sebastian found Kurt working at Canal Bar, Kurt would take his break the minute he saw Sebastian walk through the door, peeking out from the back on occasion to make sure he'd gone before Kurt went back to work. But Sebastian was persistent. He refused to leave the bar for hours and Kurt couldn't hide forever, not if he wanted to earn a paycheck. It was all fun and games for Sebastian, getting his jollies watching Kurt freak out, like they were back in high school, until it became a routine. One that felt comfortable. One that Sebastian had come to look forward to.

Sebastian didn't have too many of those in his life.

Sebastian doesn't know the whole story behind why Kurt got stuck tending bar at this low-level dive in Brooklyn, but he's learning the details little by little.

Kurt had moved to New York after high school to attend NYADA and live with Blaine, his supposed one true love, the boy whose initials had shown up on Kurt's wrist in a glowing shade of cardinal red the same day Kurt's initials showed up on Blaine's wrist in the same exact shade. That's the way love proclaimed itself to the world, through bright flaming red initials on your wrist the second you fell in love.

But if that love isn't returned, it goes stale, or it dies, the initials turn black, staining your skin forever like a morbid scar, reminding you every day of something you had that you lost. There's no way of removing them, no way of tattooing over them…no way of scratching them out. Even if you manage to, they come back with the healing layers of skin. Sebastian saw a man at his school try to burn off the initials of a woman who cheated on him (after a lonely night of not enough common sense and way too much scotch), but years of surgery and expensive therapy later, they returned, slowly unearthing through the scar tissue like they were rising from the dead. They are permanent – a cruel, sick joke of the universe on the puny mortals that inhabit the planet.

Lovers' initials didn't usually show up in pairs like Kurt's and Blaine's did. One person tends to fall in love first, so normally, one person gets them, and then, sometime after, the other person follows. In fact, what happened to Kurt and Blaine was kind of rare, so everyone who knew thought it was kismet – that they were truly meant to be together, that it was somehow preordained.

That theirs was an example of _true_ love.

True love, for them, lasted almost two years, give or take a few months.

One of the first things Sebastian had noticed about Kurt the first time he saw him - aside from his radical, punk rock, Sid Vicious makeover – was that Blaine's initials on his wrist had become an ink black mark, so dark that they didn't even look like part of Kurt's body anymore.

They were a void – a deep trench carved into his skin.

At the time, Sebastian laughed over it in private, and in true Sebastian Smythe fashion, he saw it more as an opportunity than anything else. He didn't see the underlying pain, the devastation behind it. And even if he did, even if that registered with him, he was willing to overlook it for a chance at tapping the ass stuffed inside those sinfully tight jeans Kurt wore.

Sebastian would be ashamed to admit that now.

"Come on, Hummel," Sebastian says without the teasing tone. "What the hell are you holding out for?"

Kurt scoffs, pulling out a glass to make a whiskey sour.

"You mean, besides the fact that you're obnoxious, irritating, and a complete and total asshole?" Kurt asks, sliding the finished drink down the bar without looking at its intended recipient.

"Well, obviously aside from all of that," Sebastian drawls, and Kurt laughs. He picks up a nearby rag and occupies himself, wiping down the bar while he talks, because otherwise they might actually be having a conversation, and Kurt won't own up to that.

"Because Blaine and I…you know…we're working out our differences," Kurt answers.

"Really?" Sebastian blows out a breath of disgust and sits back on his stool. He's heard that _working out our differences_ tripe before. It's some kind of cryptic code that means Blaine called or texted, once again stringing Kurt along.

And it amazes Sebastian how much that's beginning to piss him off.

"Yeah," Sebastian says, "and how is that working out?"

Sebastian expects Kurt to blow up at him, to bare his teeth and hiss some vulgar, base insult unworthy of the Kurt Hummel that Sebastian remembers, but to his surprise, Kurt stops his cleaning and stares at his reflection in the polished wood.

"You know if I took you home, I'd only be using you," Kurt admits quietly.

"I never said that was a bad thing," Sebastian replies, draining his beer glass and tapping it on the bar, asking for another. Kurt smirks.

"You know the rules, Smythe. You have to finish your shot first before I can get you another beer," Kurt reminds him.

"I've never been a big fan of rules," Sebastian says, knocking back the shot and focusing on the burn as a way to stall, thinking of a more compelling argument to get Kurt into bed. What is there left that he hasn't tried?

_When I first started coming here, it was to torment the shit out of you, but somewhere along the way I've fallen for you?_

_Do you think I've taken a cab all the way from Uptown to here every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday night that you've worked for the last six months to buy a pale ale and a shit shot of cheap Courvoisier that I can get a block from my penthouse?_

_Ditch gel helmet once and for all and give dating me a try?_

The truth is never going to get him laid, and for the moment, that's what he's looking for since he's sure that's all Kurt would be willing to offer.

"So, who are _you_ trying so hard to fuck away?" Kurt asks, hoping that Sebastian's stubborn streak doesn't stem from anything so cliché as genuine affection. Kurt doesn't know if he could handle that, not from Sebastian. Though it's interesting how a couple of years and a brand new city can change a person. When he first saw Sebastian again, right after his break with Blaine (break, not break up, since they are not officially done dragging their relationship through the mud just yet – morbid black initials be damned), his impulse was to grab his jacket and run far and fast in any direction. As it was, he spent most of his time hiding, to absolutely no avail. But now, Sebastian's become a fixture in his weekend schedule, and to date, he's never missed a night.

That has to count for something…doesn't it?

"Sadly, I'm not afflicted with such a predicament," Sebastian says, raising his glass of pale ale in a toasting gesture. "I'm just looking to pound some ass."

"And why me?" Kurt asks jokingly to hide the sincerity of his question.

"Because you happen to have the hottest ass in New York." Sebastian lifts his drink to his lips and gulps it down.

"Well, you're out of luck, Smythe," Kurt says, not entirely displeased with Sebastian's comeback, "because tonight, I have a date."

"I know," Sebastian says after a swallow. "I'm right here. I'm glad we both agree."

"Not _you_," Kurt reaches into his pocket and pulls out his vibrating cell phone. "Speak of the devil…" Kurt looks down at his screen, biting his lower lip as a smile teases his lips. Sebastian watches the smile grow, along with a hard pit in his chest. _He_ wants to put that smile there, not the asshole that Sebastian is sure has sent Kurt that text.

Sebastian averts his eyes elsewhere, not interested in watching the ideas that cross Kurt's mind through those happy eyes, but looks back the moment he hears Kurt's breath hitch.

A second later, Kurt's smile fades away as if it had never existed.

Kurt slams his phone on the bar, and Sebastian thinks he hears the screen crack, but Kurt shoves it in his pocket without checking. He looks at Sebastian with watery eyes.

"It looks like I was wrong, Smythe. Tonight's your lucky night," he says, brushing a loose tear from his cheek.

Sebastian sits up straight, not too sure this is the way he wanted to win out over Blaine, but he'll take what he can get.

"Do I get to know…"

"Do you need to know?" Kurt counters before Sebastian can finish his question.

Sebastian stares into Kurt's eyes, pleading for Sebastian to stop asking questions and help him forget.

"No," Sebastian says, fishing his wallet out of his pocket to pay his bill. "Not at all."

* * *

Kurt splashes water on his face, running wet fingers through his stiff hair, rinsing the sleep from his eyes. The night had been a blur. No, not a blur - a whirlwind. Kurt can only pick out pieces of it, bits coming into focus before what's left of the sleep in his brain tries to tug them away.

Benjamin, Kurt's boss, had let Kurt off from work early. He understood Kurt's personal life issues almost as well as Sebastian – which is to say that he knew only what he needed to know. But Kurt was a model employee – always on time, never missed a night, didn't make lame excuses to get out of working a shift. If Kurt needed to leave early, he had to have a good reason, and Benjamin felt no need to question it. Kurt let Sebastian take him to his penthouse, and once they got there, Kurt dragged him straight to the bedroom. Kurt tried to make their interaction clinical. It was a lay, only about physical pleasure and release. It disheartened Kurt for a second to realize that after Sebastian got what he was after for so long that he'd probably find a new bar to haunt and a new conquest to chase after, but maybe that was for the best.

Kurt needed to start heeding some long avoided advice from one of his best friends, Ms. Mercedes Jones.

Kurt Hummel is a diva, even dressed in ripped jeans and obscenely tight leather, and sometimes divas need to be alone.

Alone is definitely what he was now that Blaine had sent him his last text message, letting Kurt know that instead of working out their problems, he'd decided to move in with his brand-spanking-new boyfriend.

Blaine had driven the final nail into the coffin of their relationship, and via text message, no less. He didn't even have the balls to call Kurt up, or tell him to his face.

_Prick_.

Then there's Sebastian, who kissed Kurt last night like he'd been waiting for _years_ to kiss him; who undressed him slowly; who, every time Kurt tried to speed things up and make them meaningless, took Kurt's wrists in his hands and brought him back to a place of sensual beauty and longing. What they had done last night wasn't just sex. It was bordering on something more – something Kurt could recognize, but didn't want to give a name to.

This was supposed to be a one-time only thing. Kurt needed to keep it that way.

When Kurt looked down at Sebastian, he wanted to see Blaine – or anyone else for that matter.

But what he saw were dozens of drinks, bickering, arguments that turned into conversations – what movie Kurt saw last week, the amazing ceviche Sebastian had for lunch, some fugly bitch that expected a "casting couch" audition at Kurt's latest cattle call, and more than their fair shares of _do you remember when…?_

It was nice feeling a connection with another human being again, no matter how thin or superficial Kurt knew that connection was. Things hadn't felt like that with Blaine for a long time. That was probably the first clue Kurt had that things between him and Blaine were over, but Kurt liked the lie he had been telling himself too much to allow that admission to make way for good judgment.

Kurt shakes his head and keeps splashing water on his face. Why was it so hard for him to wake up? He hadn't had a thing to drink the night before. He had wanted to stay sober. He didn't need to fall headlong into a drunken infatuation with a man who couldn't keep a boyfriend. Needless to say, there are no initials, black or otherwise, anywhere on Sebastian Smythe's wrists.

Fuck, the man didn't even own a plant.

Kurt's gaze shifts to the inside of his wrist, inadvertently searching out his own depressing mark, the black BA that locks him and Blaine together, keeping them forever linked. Kurt spots them, a blight on his skin, a gruesome reminder that the man who swore he'd always love him, always be there for him, wasn't the Prince Charming that Kurt thought he was. He never had been.

It's not until the sixth splash of ice-cold water pricks Kurt's face, stinging his eyes clear, that he sees a scratch, to the right of the initials, that appears to be bleeding. Kurt's not too alarmed. Even with Sebastian's attempts at being tender and gentle, there were moments between them that got a little rough.

And Kurt liked that.

Blaine had been kind of a one-trick pony in the sack, but Kurt didn't say anything. He didn't want to make Blaine feel self-conscious. Blaine put so much effort into making every sexual encounter _special_. Now that Kurt is officially the scorned and bitter ex, he has no problem admitting that it had gotten dull fast. Always with the candles, always with the romantic music, always such a performance to prove how in love they were. But that was _Blaine's_ definition of special, not Kurt's. On the subject of how they made love, Kurt was rarely consulted, and somehow, no matter what he did manage to suggest, they still ended up doing things Blaine's way.

Kurt liked that Sebastian could be versatile, appreciated that he was open to switching gears and doing things different, even if he brought them back to soft and slow eventually. Kurt is actually astonished that he hasn't come across any other scratches. Maybe when he gets in the shower he'll find a few more. But this scratch on his wrist is in a strangely specific place, up beside Blaine's initials, as if Sebastian had tried to dig his thumbnail into them, and Kurt can't remember him doing that. Kurt rubs his eyes, squeegeeing the excess water out of them, and notices that these scratches aren't just red, they're _bright_ red. Not painful looking, but difficult to ignore. They bring to mind that morning many years ago when Kurt woke up after an all-night phone call with Blaine to find initials on his skin. That shade of red, so vibrant that it seems to pulsate, calling all eyes to it, is an impossible thing to miss.

Kurt's heart slams to a hard stop in his chest, and even though he's been splashing his face with water for a good ten minutes, his mouth goes bone dry.

"No," he says, leaving the water running and bringing his wrist up to his eyes. "Oh, God, no. Please, no." Kurt's hands start shaking before his fingertips touch his skin. They aren't scratches. He knows what they are.

They're initials, red initials beside the black ones on his wrist. Two 'S's, twined together like mating snakes, clear as broad daylight.

"No," Kurt says, running them under the water and trying to rub them off with his thumb. "No, no, no, hell no!"

Kurt's heart starts up again, speeding like a spooked horse, stuttering sickly between beats as Kurt tries to escape this reality.

"Oh, God." He pulls his hands down his face, his fingertips scraping his skin. "Oh God, oh God, oh God…" He turns off the water and races back into the bedroom. He had considered running straight for the door, but he's not wearing a stitch of clothes, and besides, there's something he needs to check first.

Sebastian is still asleep, lying on his belly, his head turned to the side, a goofy grin on his unconscious face. Kurt raises a hand to touch him, but he can't. What if Sebastian wakes up? What if he wakes up and he has a mark, too? What if they look in each other's eyes, and there's an instantaneous connection, stronger than the tremulous one that had been forming before? Kurt can't have another mark. He just can't. He doesn't want this. It can't be true. How did the universe, or genetics, or _whatever,_ think that he could be in love with Sebastian Smythe? It had to be a mistake. There had to be a mix-up. This couldn't be happening to him.

But the longer he stands and stares at Sebastian, arm outstretched towards him, Kurt can feel it. He can actually fucking feel it. It might not be all-encompassing. It might not be the stereotypical wave of emotion rushing in to sweep him away, but it's there – a tiny blossom growing anew where the garden of Blaine's affections had existed, its carefully tended flowers black, like the initials on Kurt's wrist, except for this single bud, fresh and red, starting to weed its way through the decay.

It's unexpected, it's beautiful, and Kurt has to find a way to yank it out.

But Kurt won't be able to if he can't bring himself to touch the man on the bed.

If Sebastian doesn't have a mark, too, then Kurt could get out of this unscathed. He'd invest in a grip of Kat Von D cover-up and forget that this ever happened. He might even be able to sidestep the broken heart. Because there's nothing between him and Sebastian. Nothing at all. Nothing but a lot of verbal barbs, a shit ton of fights, some idle flirting, a few heart to hearts, a nugget or two of advice…and an ongoing date every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday night.

_Shit_!

Kurt has to act quickly before he convinces himself that he can have a healthy, substantial relationship with Sebastian…or that he has one with him already. He turns over Sebastian's wrists – first the left, then the right. He examines them both carefully to be completely certain he doesn't miss anything.

Nothing.

Kurt sighs. As an afterthought, he lifts up the comforter and examines Sebastian's entire body, rolling him over to check down his front.

"Wha-what's going on?" Sebastian giggles, lifting his left hand to rub his eyes. "Did you want to go again, sweetheart?" Sebastian's arm drops to the mattress, and a second later he snores loudly through his open mouth, immediately back asleep.

Kurt scrubs his hands over his face and into his hair, combing through the drying strands. He looks at the mark on his wrist and sighs, mildly disappointed that Sebastian didn't have any, too.

"What a fucked up mess," he mumbles, crossing his arms over his chest to hide the mark from himself, from Sebastian…from himself. He picks up Sebastian's arm and looks at his mark-free, overturned wrist. "Of course not," Kurt scoffs, running his wet finger over it. Something thick and gummy comes up on Kurt's skin. He turns his finger over, touches it with his thumb. Whatever the gunk is, it's flesh colored. Kurt looks back at Sebastian's wrist and sees just a touch, a shadow, the tiniest hint of red. Kurt narrows his eyes and rubs the spot with his finger until the gunk (which Kurt realizes is concealer) comes off, revealing a set of vivid red initials underneath – _KH_.

Kurt's overworked heart comes to another dead stop, and this time, he's afraid it won't start up again.

"What the…what the fuck?" Kurt pants, rubbing the initials over and over, thinking that more make-up, _red_ make-up, will come off next, but it doesn't, and he starts to hyperventilate.

He looks at Sebastian's sleeping face, ready to slap him awake, but hooded green eyes stare back at him.

Kurt's face loses all color. There are a hundred and one questions he wants to ask, but never will, because his mind goes blank.

He can barely breathe.

"Sebastian?" is the only thing he can manage to say.

Sebastian swallows, but he doesn't pull his arm away. He doesn't try to hide from Kurt what's been a part of him for a while.

"Kurt," he says, "I can explain."


End file.
